Italy

Only 10.3% of the paediatricians participating in this survey had a very favourable attitude towards the utility of the recommended vaccinations for infants60% of the paediatricians would like to know more about vaccines.Only 25% of the paediatricians administered "recommended" (as opposed to "mandatory") vaccines to their patients (whooping cough, measles, mumps, chickenpox, rubella, Hib, pneumococcus, meningococcus). (Italy)

Health workers are refusing influenza vaccination, despite ten years of efforts to increase the vaccination rates. Only 30% of doctors, 11% of nurses, and 9% of clinical staff have been vaccinated against the flu. (Italy)

Recruits in Italy, who had antibodies for hepatitis A, suffered from asthma and allergic rhinitis 2 times less often, than the soldiers who did not have antibodies. Recruits, who had older brothers, also suffered from allergic diseases less frequently, which means that hepatitis A is not the only infection that decreases the risk of allergic diseases. Hepatitis A was an endemic disease in Italy in the 1970s. It was usually an asymptomatic childhood disease. Other studies in recent decades also reveal an inverse relationship between hepatitis A antibodies and allergies in different countries. In the 1970s in the USA, hepatitis A antibodies were more often detected in the older generation than in the younger one, whereas younger generation had more atopic diseases.

It is considered that hepatitis A superinfection (an infection that develops on top of another infection), in hepatitis B and C chronic patients, leads to liver failure and high probability of death. However, it is also reported that hepatitis A infection can cause a full or temporary recovery from chronic hepatitis. The mechanisms of this phenomenon are unknown. A case of a 24-year-old drug addict with chronic hepatitis is described here. He ate raw fish and got hepatitis A, after curing which, he no longer had chronic hepatitis C. It was most likely due to interferon gamma (a cytokine secreted by Th1 cells), the level of which increased significantly after infection. Cases of hepatitis B suppression during hepatitis A are also reported: [1], [2], [3].

In the 70s to 90s Italy, the incidence of rubella in children decreased, but increased significantly in teenagers and adults.The incidence of mumps significantly decreased in children under 14 years of age, but remained almost the same among adults. It could be because the Rubini strain was used in Italy, which turned out to be very ineffective. This strain was replaced in 2001. The number of rubella cases among children increased in the 80s, and then decreased again. Among the teenagers and adults, the number of cases increased significantly in the 80s, and remained high in the following years. 59% of children in the 2-4 years age group had measles and rubella antibodies, but only 32% had antibodies against all three infections. Among the 14-year-olds, only 46% had antibodies against all three diseases. Among those of the age 20 years and older, 6.1% had no measles antibodies, 11.7% had no mumps antibodies, and 8.8% of those 15 years old and over had no rubella antibodies.The incidence of rubella has not changed over the last decades, despite the fact that rubella vaccination for girls was introduced in Italy in the 1970s. On the contrary, insufficient vaccination coverage, which does not eradicate the disease, as in the case of measles, causes a shift of the disease incidence to adults, which is much more dangerous in the case of rubella due to the risk of infection during pregnancy. The authors conclude that the WHO’s goal of measles, mumps and rubella eradication has not been achieved, and that insufficient vaccination in Italy only caused an increase in number of adults susceptible to measles and rubella, and had no effect on mumps.

Out of four cases of lymphoblastic leukemia in 1965, two died, and two got measles during treatment and are still alive. The author believes that it is possible that the rubella virus also has rubella there is a beneficial effect.

From 1984 to 1994, 40 people died of tetanus in the Lazio region in Italy (population of 5.1 million). 48% of them were elderly people, and among the younger ones, mostly intravenous drug users died. In the age group of under 30 years old, no death were recorded. Among those who were not drug users, only one person under the age of 40 died, and two more people under the age of 50. The risk of death in elderly people was 27 times higher, in farmers – 167 times higher, and in drug users – 186 times higher.

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